Keira on swashbuckling with Orlando and sniffing around Johnny Depp

If Hillary Clinton still needs further evidence that the entirety of Generation Y isn't suffering from indolence, a grossly out-of-whack sense of entitlement, and Xbox-triggered carpal tunnel syndrome, she might want to consider the saga of Keira Knightley. Raised in a London suburb by her dad, theater and TV actor Will Knightley, and her actress-turned-playwright mother, Sharman Macdonald, Knightley famously informed her parents that she'd like to get an agent...at the ripe age of three. Judiciously, they put the rug rat off until she turned seven. In the years since, Knightley, now just 21, has crossed off pretty much every item on a checklist of milestones that any aspiring actress could hope to accomplish in the span of a long career.

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The quirky indie cred came early with her breakout role in 2002's Bend It Like Beckham, a film that, despite costing about as much as a can of tomato soup to produce and concerning the questionably marketable subject of girls playing soccer, managed to gross more than $76 million worldwide. Knightley made Ebert swoon and went on to score an Oscar nomination for her nuanced, vulnerable portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, a sweet little film that served as a welcome sorbet following two expensive, testosterone-soaked critical flops, King Arthur and Domino. The mass adulation came as Knightley, who, despite being closer to Olive Oyl than Marilyn Monroe on the starlet body-type continuum, dispatched pneumatic icons like Angelina Jolie to be voted sexiest film actress of all time by readers of the British movie magazine Empire. As for a glamorous, crazily remunerative gig shilling stuff, Knightley recently unseated fellow striking beanpole Kate Moss to be the new face of Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle fragrance line. And somehow, unlike certain American contemporaries, she matured publicly with her dignity intact, with nary a public catfight or embarrassing head-in-toilet photo in her tabloid file.

How does she pull it off? "Since the first time I met her, she's been totally unwilling to compromise herself in any way," says Orlando Bloom, her swashbuckling snog-mate in Pirates of the Caribbean. "She hasn't picked up any sort of entourage. She surrounds herself with friends and family, which is key to maintaining a sense of reality even when everything seems unreal. She just possesses that rare grounded quality."

"Keira's an incredibly focused young woman," says Joe Wright, who directed her in Pride & Prejudice and has cast her in his upcoming adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. "I think she was underestimated for a while, and I think she set out to disprove that when playing Elizabeth. She wanted to make sure she was getting the kind of attention that she deserves for a reason. She's not particularly into this whole celebrity bullshit thing. Keira actually really loves the craft of acting and just wants to be the best craftswoman she can be."

What else can Knightley achieve in the next 70 or so years she's got left on Earth? With the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest comes the first indicator of whether Knightley will be able to boast of starring in one of the most successful film franchises of all time. The first Pirates grossed more than $650 million worldwide—enough to convince Disney to cough up the kind of loot required to lure Knightley, Bloom, and Johnny Depp into baking in the hot Caribbean sun for nearly eight months while concurrently shooting two sequels. That searing sunshine was a distant memory the rainy night ELLE spoke with Knightley in Rome, where she was midway through shooting Silk, an independent period romance set for release next year. Gazing out the window of her room at the Hotel Raphael at the glistening cobblestones of the piazza below, the sparky ingenue chatted about her persnickety parents, the lingering rumors of surgical enhancement, and that Pride & Prejudice costar boyfriend she's so secretively tucked away.

ELLE: Did the Oscar nomination change your life at all?

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: For ages and ages, everybody was going, "Oh, she's just a pretty face. She absolutely can't act." And I was always going, "Well, maybe they're right; I don't know." So that at least shut them up for a while.

ELLE: Did you have any inkling while you were shooting Pride & Prejudice that you'd really nailed the part?

KK: Oh God, no! I still have nightmares about that film. I wake up thinking, Oh shit, I should have played it like that or I should have done this like that. I can't watch it because I'll just be going, "Why did you do that?"

ELLE: What's your biggest splurge since making the big money?

KK: My flat in London, which I bought two years ago. I started working when I was seven, and ever since then I've been saving for an apartment. Even before that I had a little jam jar designated for my apartment money. I suppose that comes from my mom and dad being in theater. They were always saying, "As soon as you can, buy a flat and get a roof over your head. If it all falls apart, at least you won't be sleeping under a bridge."

ELLE: Do you find that your parents, both being of the theater world, are particularly critical of your performances?

KK: They're fantastically supportive but also highly critical. I prefer that to somebody completely bullshitting me. They'll say if they think something is shit. Actually, they won't—they'll just go very silent and go, "Oh, that was nice." Nice is the worst word.

ELLE: Theater people tend to be a competitive lot. Do you think your parents experience any jealousy that they never made the money or got the exposure that you've gotten?

KK: Envy is the last thing that they feel. If anything, it's quite the reverse. I think they kind of go, "Phew, that's not for us." There's much more worry than envy.

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ELLE: What are they so worried about?

KK: My dad always says, "I really wish this had happened way later so you could go and be f--king nuts and nobody would care, and you could grow up." Because of the success, there's obviously a lot of comments made if I'm coming out of a club trashed or whatever. That's when they go, "Oh, I wish this hadn't happened." And right now I spend a lot of time alone in hotel rooms, and I think they want me to be in one place and be a bit more grounded. My dad wrote this brilliant thing in my twenty-first-birthday card: "I'm not going to say, 'I hope you get all you wish for.' I'm going to say, 'I hope that you can handle all that you've got.'"

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ELLE: If we gathered all your ex-boyfriends in a room, what do you think they would commiserate about?

KK: That I work too much.

ELLE: Has this become a big issue in your romantic life?

KK: It's impossible. You try to have any kind of relationship with your family, with a man, or with a friend, and you have to be on the phone and the Internet the entire time. The other main complaint would probably be, "Don't squeeze your spots," which I'm afraid has been a big thing for me for a while. I get a load of zits, and I'm always squeezing them in the bathroom mirror.

ELLE: You speak quite a lot in interviews about those pimples. What's your acne regimen consist of these days?

KK: At the moment, soap and water. It's working okay. And I find that drinking red wine is quite helping. The more red wine I drink, the more they clear up.

ELLE: Are you sure that you're not just unable to see yourself clearly in the mirror?

KK: It's stupid shit. I don't freak out about anything that actually warrants a freak-out. That I can deal with. It's the little stuff I can't deal with.

ELLE: How unpleasant is it for men to fight with you?

KK: I don't think any fights are that pleasant. Anyone who has ever gone out with me would tell you that I have this awful tendency to cry when I get really angry. And I can't stop.

ELLE: Interesting habit. There's nothing that will cause a man to lay down his arms faster than a crying woman.

KK: Yeah, I've found that, too.

ELLE: Do you suppose it's just a tactic to win?

KK: Absolutely not. If I could stop it I would, because I can occasionally come up with some fantastically cutting one-liners in fights. I'll come out with one, and say, "Oh, that was great," but suddenly I'll find I'm crying. And I'll be like, "Shit, I completely ruined my one-liner." It's annoying.

KK: I'm absolutely not answering that question. I don't talk about my private life. Brilliantly formed question, though.

ELLE: Thanks, I guess. What piece of gossip have you read about yourself that you only wish had been true?

KK: That I got paid eight million pounds for Pride & Prejudice. I won't tell you what I did get, but it was way less than that. Also, a friend told me that they read that I only travel on private jets now, which is really good to know. So I'll have to cancel my flight from Rome on Thursday now that I know I'm going to be picked up by my private jet.

ELLE: Is there anything untrue that's been repeated over and over?

KK: I went for a very long time reading that I'd had a lip job. That was around for ages after I met a rather nasty man at a party who came up to me and said, "Is it true you've had your lips done?" And I stupidly went, "Oh, yeah, that's right," instead of saying, "No, that's not true." But that's gone away now.

ELLE: Speaking of ballooning body parts, there was some controversy over the posters for King Arthur, where your breasts seemed digitally enlarged.

KK: Yes, those things certainly weren't mine. I remember we had an interesting discussion when [the studio] said, "We want to make them slightly larger. And you'll get approval." And I was like, "Okay fine. I honestly don't give a shit." But then they showed me the first copy and these things must have been double Es, and they were down to my knees. I was like, "I don't mind you making them bigger, but don't give me f--king droopy breasts! They look like your grandmother's tits." So for the poster they were scaled back to a C cup.

ELLE: American audiences tend to be exacting about breast size in their actresses.

KK: It does seem to be a big thing with Americans. I did one magazine and found out you're not actually allowed to be on their cover without at least a C cup because it turns people off. Apparently they've done the market research and found that women want to see no less than a C cup on other women. Isn't that crazy? So they made my tits bigger for that as well.

ELLE: On the subject of magazine covers, you and Scarlett Johansson posed nude for Vanity Fair, while Rachel McAdams walked off the shoot because she didn't want to disrobe. How did that go down?

KK: It was actually pretty undramatic as I remember it. Quite early on Rachel just said, "No, I'm not into that." She's a lovely girl, and I really respect her for doing that. Both me and Scarlett had worked with Annie Leibovitz and her team before, and I really get on with them, so that was a situation I felt comfortable in. I really believe that in this industry women have to be very true to themselves about what they're comfortable with. It's the same thing with sex scenes in films. You have to know your boundaries. But I'm not going to pretend that I'm not comfortable with something I actually am comfortable with. Both me and Scarlett said, "This is definitely something that we're up for." So why not? It's something to show the grandchildren.

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ELLE: You've done nudity in a number of roles. Just curious: Does your quote go up if you take your clothes off?

KK: No, unfortunately. I've heard stories of actresses who, like, added a million to their contract if they did it, but I guess I started doing it so early on, people just go, "Oh, you don't have to pay her more to do it. You'd have to pay her to keep them on."

ELLE: Do you consider yourself an exhibitionist?

KK: I don't really think that's hugely exhibitionistic. Is it? Is that the most exhibitionistic thing I could do?

ELLE: Taking your clothes off in front of a crew, and knowing the whole world will be able to see it afterwards? Yeah, I think it ranks up there.

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KK: I think this is where we come up against American puritanism versus European liberalism. I suppose I've just got a European sensibility, and I don't have a problem with it. You watch any French movie and they're f--king all over the place. But I think if it's done well, it can be beautiful. Film is about expressing every human emotion, whether it's an exploration of violence, loneliness, or sex. You've got to explore all of it.

ELLE: Is there anything about your body you wish you could change?

KK: Oh Jesus. I'd change it all.

ELLE: Please.

KK: Have you met a woman who wouldn't change it all? If they have told you that, they're lying.

ELLE: All right, then what would you change first?

KK: I hate my legs. They're awful. I'd make them longer and less wobbly. And I'd tone down my ass. That I could do very simply by just working out, but I obviously don't want it that much.

ELLE: What's your most treasured souvenir from a film shoot?

KK: I played Lara in [the TV miniseries] Doctor Zhivago when I was 16, and I have all of Lara's coats, which I still wear. I have most of the shoes and all of Lizzie Bennet's striped socks from Pride & Prejudice. And I have my corset from the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

ELLE: So I gather you're allowed to basically loot all your film sets.

KK: No, you're not. Everything goes into storage, but there were certain things they had doubles or triples of, so I got one set of them.

ELLE: Is there anything you feel guilty about stealing from a set?

KK: Yes, but I'm not going to tell you what it was because then they'll ask for it back!

ELLE: What's your most treasured piece of clothing?

KK: I've got a fantastic Ghost belt that was actually given to me on the ELLE shoot. And I have two Ossie Clark dresses that are my favorite things in the world.

ELLE: How much is too much to spend on a pair of shoes?

KK: It's tough because I'm a bit of a shoe freak. I'd say a couple of hundred dollars is where I'd stop.

ELLE: I think you're withholding. You must have at least one pair of $750 shoes.

KK: No, I definitely don't. Maybe I have one pair of Christian Louboutins that cost about $500. Actually, I'm lying. They were $495.

ELLE: A hypothetical: Which of your costars would you trust to take a large cash deposit to the bank for you?

KK: None of them. Actors just aren't that trustworthy.

ELLE: Which would you take out on the town to make a boyfriend jealous?

KK: Either Orlando or Johnny would do the trick.

ELLE: Who would you be least surprised to learn had killed someone in a bar fight?

KK: Judi Dench.

ELLE: You worked with Mickey Rourke on Domino. Is he as strange as people imagine?

KK: I love Mickey Rourke. He's f--king wicked. Beforehand, everybody was saying, "My God, you're working with Mickey Rourke? That's terrible." But honestly, I loved working with him. He's one of these people who cannot help but be himself. And that's beautiful. And he taught me to box.

ELLE: Did you file charges?

KK: I should have done! No! He bought me gloves and pads, and he'd go through it with me outside our trailers.